Wednesday, February 4, 2009

When you think of "superheroes" (and who doesn't), what comes to mind first? That they're totally hot, that is correct. What about second? The cape! Correct. Superheroes have capes. Do the bad guys have capes? I'm not recalling that they do. Let's see...The Joker, he didn't have a cape, he had green hair and a crazy ass mouth.....The Penguin, he had a tuxedo with tails and a monocle....Simon Bar Sinister and his equally evil assistant Cad, they had a lab coat and Cad wore a smock or a frock or a dress (he wasn't the most manly evil-doer, but like all the dumb ones, they always see disaster headed toward their plans, why is that?)....Doc Ock, he had a long coat, but I don't think I'd call it a "cape" necessarily, especially with all of those mechanical appendages coming out of the back of it. That's hardly cape-like.

My point was that the bad guys don't have capes. If you want to pretend that you're a superhero so that you can wear a cape that's fine, but you have to do superhero-y things. If you want to be one of the bad guys, you really shouldn't have a cape at all (as I've already proven that bad guys don't wear capes). And if you're a really, really dumb bad guy, you definitely shouldn't have a cape that you've fashioned out of a sleeping bag and you shouldn't carry screwdrivers in your pants either. What?

Can you tell that we're down in Flori-duh today? Of course you can! Today's tale of Flori-duh escapades gone awry comes to us from Gainesville. And according toThe Gainesville Sun, a one Marcus Lee Maddox was "reportedly wearing a sleeping bag as a cape and brandishing a screwdriver as a weapon." Um, stop using tools as a weapon? What the hell?!

Wearing a sleeping bag as a cape? Why would one do that? Even if you're not quite right in the ol' noggin' (as I'm just going to take a wild leap and say that this guy is not quite right), why would you use a sleeping bag for your cape? It's quite weighty and bulky. It doesn't make sense. If you must have a cape, do it the right way and get a sheet from your bed and tie it around your neck a la cape-style. It's much lighter, it will ripple in the wind. A cape? Well, that's just cumbersome. Use a sheet, make your cape and then take the rest of your bedding and turn the living room couch into a fort and watch a little TV in there with your cape on. It makes for a lovely Saturday afternoon!

But this guy couldn't quite figure that out. No, instead this guy had "...walked up to a Gainesville man in the parking lot of the Kangaroo store... and asked for money." (Hold on! Hold on! I had questions too, so I looked it up! Apparently, Kangaroo is the name of a chain of gas stations, I think. And I am 99% certain that they do not sell kangaroos or any other pouched marsupial there. Almost positive. Almost.) Now, the man whose money was "asked for" declined to participate in this activity and that's when Maddox "...threw off the sleeping bag he had been wearing as a cape and pulled the screwdriver from the waistband of his pants." Then "...Mattox claimed he knew the man had money and had better 'give it up.' " I see. A screwdriver? It's like Bob the Builder has begun a life of crime. ::::sigh::::: Man, people are morons.

See, the essence of the cape is that it gives off the impression of power and strength. You really don't want to mess with someone in a cape. I can't think of any caped individuals in history (or my neighborhood) with whom I'd care to socialize with ever. But this dough head throws off his "cape" and pulls out the weapon of choice of the mentally impaired - the screwdriver. He must have had to pull it out of his pants because he left his utility belt in the Bat Cave (or the Moron Cave). And it's really not very threatening to anyone when your sleeping bag cape drops to the ground and you're shoving your hand down your pants looking for your weapon to brandish. It's quite a sight, but it's far from threatening to see an angry, would-be villain wildly groping down the front of his trousers.

He apparently managed to find the screwdriver down there, though, and that's what caused the victim and a witness to go inside of the Kangaroo (store) and call the police. And it would seem that cape man there just let them go. He's not a very persistent criminal. He's going to have to show much more determination in the future if he ever hopes that this life of crime is going to get off of the ground. (That cape certainly isn't going to get him off of the ground; it's made out of a sleeping bag, for cryin' out loud.) He was "...arrested a few blocks away, the screwdriver he allegedly used to try to rob the man was found in Mattox's back pocket." Ah-ha! See? He figured out that all of the frontal groinal region groping was no way to reach for your weapon-tool. Probably walked off muttering to himself, "Man, that almost went right through my grundle. I've gotta carry it somewhere else. Maybe I'll try the pockets."

This was a poor attempt (at best) at committing a crime. The guy really should have thought things through. Time is one of the greatest deterrents. Give yourself just a little bit of time to think over crazed plans like these and most of the time, you'll start to see a couple of holes poking through your fail-proof plan there. The sleeping bag as a cape really was a bad idea to start out with and an even worse one to actually put into action. Who did he think he was? "I'm Outdoor Sleep Gear Man! I'll keep your warm at night in temperatures as low as 30 degrees below zeroooooo! But beware, I carry a screwdriver right next to my grunddlllllleee!"